The Abundance

Majmudar (Partitions) returns with a moving story of motherhood across cultural divides. After Mala and Ronak’s mother tells them she has been diagnosed with cancer, the center of their world shifts from their own children and spouses and back to the woman who raised them. Their mother fears the change her illness will bring, not only to her body but also to the family’s comfortable routine. She realizes some good might result, though, when Mala unexpectedly decides to learn how to cook the Indian meals she ate as a child. During the hours they spend together making dahi and rotli, Mala and Ronak’s mother (never given her own name) muses upon watching them grow up and mature, from struggling as the children of immigrants in the Midwest to becoming parents themselves. Majmudar’s precise dialogue saves the novel from its few moments of sentimentality and makes the theme of the divide between immigrant parent and first-generation children seem surprisingly fresh. Powerful in its simplicity and honesty, The Abundance reminds us of the way our roots inevitably shape our adult selves. Agent: Georges Borchardt, the Georges Borchardt Literary Agency. (Mar.)